By the end of the fifteenth century, Florence was well established as the home of the Renaissance. As generous patrons to the likes of Botticelli & Michelangelo, the ruling Medici embodied the progressive humanist spirit of the age, & in Lorenzo the Magnificent they possessed a diplomat capable of guarding the militarily weak city in a climate of constantly shifting allegiances between the major Italian powers. However, in the form of Savonarola, an unprepossessing provincial monk, Lorenzo found his nemesis. Filled with Old Testament fury & prophecies of doom, Savonarola's sermons reverberated among a disenfranchised population, who preferred medieval Biblical certainties to the philosophical interrogations & intoxicating surface glitter of the Renaissance. Savonarola's aim was to establish a ' City of God' for his followers, a new kind of democratic state, the likes of which the world had never seen before. The battle which this provoked would be a fight to the death, a series of sensational events
- invasions, trials by fire, the ' Bonfire of the Vanities', terrible executions & mysterious deaths
- featuring a cast of the most important & charismatic Renaissance figures. This famous struggle has often been portrayed as a simple clash of wills between a benign ruler & religious fanatic, between secular pluralism & repressive extremism. However, in an exhilaratingly rich & deeply researched story, Paul Strathern reveals the paradoxes, self-doubts & political compromises which made the battle for the soul of the Renaissance city one of the most complex & important moments in Western history.

...

Florence, October 1966. The rain is never-ending. When a young boy vanishes on his way home from school the police fear the worst, & Inspector Bordelli begins an increasingly desperate investigation. Then the flood hits. During the night of 4th November the swollen River Arno, already lapping the arches of the Ponte Vecchio, breaks its banks & overwhelms the city. Streets become rushing torrents, the force of the water sweeping away cars & trees, doors, shutters & anything else in its wake. In the aftermath of this unimaginable tragedy the mystery of the child`s disappearance seems destined to go unsolved. But obstinate as ever, Bordelli is not prepared to give up. ...

Capital punishment in London, its history & basis, is the theme of this new book on a darker side of London's history. London had many sites of execution, Tyburn, of course, but also Clerkenwell, Wapping, Kennington & Tower Hill among others. The spectacle, in the opinion of the authorities, provided deterrence, though more often it was a grisly form of public entertainment. The author has researched archives for accounts of executions & the book is well illustrated. ...

Can the US president really just disappear into thin air...? Helen Barclay, the first female of the United States, has been kidnapped on a state visit to Norway: it is up to the FBI & the Norwegian police to work together to find her. But their enemy is far more powerful than they could ever imagine. The President`s abduction represents the biggest threat to homeland security since 9/11. However, as Johanne Vik assists on the investigation she learns that the private life of President Barclay is also under attack. There are those who would stop at nothing to destroy the leader of the free world. & in a twist of fate, secrets from Johanne`s own past are at risk of being revealed, jeopardising all she has worked for & endangering the lives of those she loves most... The third instalment in the gripping Vik/ Stubo series. ...

Since the rediscovery of her work in the late 1980s, Annemarie Schwarzenbach
- journalist, traveler, archaeologist, opium addict,
...

Florence, 1965. A man is found murdered, a pair of scissors stuck through his throat. Only one thing is known about him
- he
...

` Soaringly beautiful, urgent & disturbing... A masterpiece.` Colm Toibin, from the introduction Death in Spring is a dark & dream-like tale of a teenage boy`s coming of age in a remote village in the Catalan mountains; a place cut off from the outside world, where cruel customs are blindly followed, & attempts at rebellion swiftly crushed. When his father dies, he must navigate this oppressive society alone, & learn how to live in a place of crippling conformity. Often seen as an allegory for life under a dictatorship, Death in Spring is a bewitching & unsettling novel about power, exile, & the hope that comes from even the smallest gestures of independence. ` Rodoreda has bedazzled me` Gabriel Garcia Marquez` Rodoreda`s artistry is of the highest order` Diana Athill ` Read it for its beauty, for the way it will surprise & subvert your desires, & as a testament to the human spirit in the face of brutality & willful inhumanity.` Jesmyn Ward, author of Sing, Unburied, Sing ...

Five years after Charles II`s triumphant return to London there is growing mistrust of his extravagant court & of corruption among his officials
- & when a cart laden with gunpowder explodes outside the General Letter Office, it is immediately clear that such an act is more than an expression of outrage at the inefficiency of the postal service. As intelligencer to the Lord Chamberlain, Thomas Chaloner cannot understand why a man of known incompetence is put in charge of investigating the attack while he is diverted to make enquiries about the poisoning of birds in the King`s aviary in St James`s Park. He becomes even more suspicious of his employer`s motives when he discovers that the witnesses he needs to interview have close links to the business conducted in the General Letter Office, activities more firmly centred on intercepting people`s mail than delivering it. Then human rather than avian victims are poisoned, & Chaloner knows he has to ignore his master`s instructions & use his own considerable wits to defeat an enemy whose deadly tentacles reach into the very heart of the government: an enemy who has the power & expertise to destroy anyone who stands in the way.. .
...

` Fierce, fresh & feminist, Fern Riddell tells the story of Suffragette Kitty Marion in a way that fizzes & shocks. Exciting, twisty & very very timely.` Lucy Worsley` History with no dust.` Matt Haig In Death in Ten Minutes Fern Riddell uncovers the story of radical suffragette Kitty Marion, told through never before seen personal diaries in Kitty`s own h&. Kitty Marion was sent across the country by the Pankhurst family to carry out a nationwide campaign of bombings & arson attacks, as women fought for the vote using any means necessary. But in the aftermath of World War One, the dangerous & revolutionary actions of Kitty & other militant suffragettes were quickly hushed up & disowned by the previously proud movement, & the women who carried out these attacks were erased from our history. Now, for the first time, their untold story will be brought back to life. Telling a new history of the women`s movement in the light of new & often shocking revelations, this book will ask the question: Why has the life of this incredible woman, & the violence of the suffragettes been forgotten? &, one hundred years later, why are women suddenly finding themselves under threat again? ...

Hemingway’s Death in the Afternoon shares the sights, the sounds, the excitement, & above all, the knowledge which fuelled his passion for Spain & the bullfight. This remarkable book contains some of his finest writing, inspired by the intense life, as well as the inevitable death, of those hot, violent afternoons. ...